


rigid again

by Scornful_truth



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Bittersweet, Depression, Fluff (?), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Emotional Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kokichi had a sucky life, Lies, M/M, Panic Attacks, Sad, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, Shuichi used to be obsessed pre-game, i just like tagging sad things, i ruined my sad taging, i should just name this Implied/Referenced, oh well, sad things, self-everything that isn’t positive, summary is that kokichi is sad and shu is there suppling hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:54:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22038895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scornful_truth/pseuds/Scornful_truth
Summary: He’s not able to change.Or, he tries to with pitiful efforts, but in the end he’s still unable to bend to the will of the future. While his mind is forced in the shape of the past.
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 116





	rigid again

**Author's Note:**

> Kokichi is the shadow of me and I’m venting again

He wrapped his arms around himself and swayed, Back to forth, then back again. The music dancing in his mind was swirling is giant masses of fog that blinds him from the bitter tasting insults that stained his skin.

The soft fabric that drooped around his shoulders and hung around his arms felt all too nice. His collar bone was left exposed to the air that soaked his fingertips that peeked out of the large sleeve. He pulled the hem of it back just a bit to free his hand. With delicate fingers he brushed his bangs out of his weary eyes.

His eyes were a reflecting violet that glistened in any light no matter how dim. They remained half open, and in desperate moments they fly open in a panicked hiccup. Underneath them was a heavily smudged grey circle that stung his skin. Burning up along his eyes and only pushing his head to lull forward and carry his tired beaten body with it.

He’s clumsy anyway. The bruises pass off as another step misplaced. His pinkened cheeks and sorely red knees are nothing but lies coated in embarrassment and achingly placed limbs. Even the rashes at the corner of his eyes are mistaken as a minor sickness that’ll go away. 

Yet standing barefoot in the room of a dark kitchen, he knows this type of sickness won’t ever go away unless someone came along and cured him.

He traced his trembling fingers along the countertop as his dull eyes tear into the broken marble. On hesitation, he looked up to the window where moonlight poured onto his hands. He leaned over them. Where he could see the slashes of fake paper cuts burrowed deeply within his fingers. 

The tears of shame dripped from his swollen eyes, where the red rash would only worsen. He rubbed at them, irritating the skin further, but he never brought himself to care. He stood so still, in the middle of the dark, imagining that he held the only light in his life. Just in his hands were he could drink from and be saved.

He hated how when he cried he was silent. The painful lump in his throat choked the air he breathed and cut off his sense. His bottom lip wobbled as he lowered his head. Watching the tears fall into his shaking hands. 

Ah-hah. It’s a worthless feeling he dies from. Not the bruises. Not the nightmares. Not the baren skin that revolts from fire and sears with false belief that it’s burning. Not even his shattered mask.

Despite the constant ache that swallowed his heart and gagged on the heavy set feeling of reality, he turned his head to look longingly at the back door. It would be so unbelievably easy to just run away. Even with the storm blanketing the area in thick snow. 

Kokichi twirled a finger around a straying lock of hair. He needs to feel— or at least needs to be punished for his feelings. It’s not as if he wishes to have a punishment, it was the only thing that felt good while the pain ripped apart his chest. 

So he fell into temptation. With slow careful steps, he quietly placed one bare foot in front of the other. Shaking from the panic he suffered upon waking up. The tremors that thrilled his muscles and shook his body insufferable, were lessening and now, only the nerve sores were working in to make his life harder.

His fumbling hand wrapped around the handle. With a little push, the door swung open with an abrupt clash as the wind crashed it into the wall of his temporary home. With the icy slap of howling wind, no one would have heard it. He hopes.

He took one step forward to plant one foot onto the frozen snow covered porch. The chill shot up his leg and seeped into his spine. It didn’t feel nice, but that’s what he wanted, he wanted the pain to freeze away the ache in his chest. Even to chase away the thoughts until he can’t think properly anymore.

Now, he’s five steps in. There’s about 3 inches of blowing snow dusting the wooden floorboards. His toes are already turning an unhealthy shade of red, and the bruises of his knees seemed to disappear to a purely white with the chalky blood pumping through his veins. He wore only shorts, exposing his legs to the horrid condition, but figured he wouldn’t be out that long.

He grabbed ahold of the support beams just before the stairs that would guide him to the grass hidden under two feet of snow. He stayed there until he caught himself thinking about other things, on how it wasn’t cold anymore. 

In reality, he’s too frigid to feel it. His lips are blue, his ears are a darkened red. His nose copied the color while his cheeks froze colorless. The tears that once tracked down his face seemed to freeze against his skin, piercing the area and making it feel like prickers jutting into his flesh.

That’s how it felt anywhere else where his skin was directly touching the wiping winds that struck him with every snowflake that pelted down at him. It was so strong that it made his once soft shirt pull in one direction to follow the snow. He doesn’t like this, and yet it’s exactly what he wanted.

He didn’t deserve to feel comfortable. The shocking chills of revolting strikes of ice beating him was what he was made to suffer with. Having someone there, holding him, was either forced, or they were lying to him to get something he most likely didn’t have. 

He’s used to cold. Cold people. Cold hands. Cold parents. And especially a cold death. An upsetting death, that pulled out screams from the bottom of his unfeeling soul to splatter the air in agony, cursing anyone who heard him. Cold, his throat always feels cold after screaming. His body would shiver in the sweat that came after a nightmare. 

He’s always cold.

He’s shaking worse now, trembling until his jaw chattered in his mouth painfully. He tried to clamp down on his tongue to stop it, but that only rickacheited into a throbbing headache. The ache pushed a whine through his lips. It’s pathetic. 

_Wait, what was he doing_?

He turned back, glancing at the swinging door that tapped against the home relentlessly. He doesn’t want to be cold. 

So he trudged frozen limbs to the door, where he grabbed the frost covered handle and with his remaining strength, pulled it shut. Exhaustion slowly led down his body as he stumbled into the living room. 

The last thing he remembered was feeling his body give out once his hand felt the fabric of the couch. 

* * *

  
  


He’s still unbearably cold when he wakes up. Though, not entirely frozen anymore. His body had slackened to the point where his muscles seized up uselessly. Stiff and unmoving, the fact that he was pinned here on his back by an invisible force squeezed his lungs.

Despite his feeble efforts, his mind plunged into panic. A calm panic, the frantic silence of a bleeding mind. His breath caught in his throat, where the cold air of phantom screams sat back, awaiting an exit. His eyes weren’t plastered open in fear, they were narrowed in desperation, tears of discomfort wading in them. 

“..H-Hah-!” He forced out a stolen breath of air. Hyper focusing on the ceiling, begging it foolishly not to fall. Even though he knew it wasn’t real, in his vision it sunk lower. Getting closer, then suddenly glitching back to where it was, to crawl closer again. Over and over. 

He shifted his head to the side, with a memory soiling crack in his neck. Again, washing over him was a mount of fear, as if he was far from safety, long since gone from reality. His mouth hung open in an attempt to swallow air he needed, that he wanted. But his complexion grew paler, as did his chest heave with weight piling on top of his sternum. 

It wasn’t real, he reminded himself. All the crushing, squeezing, popping, wasn’t real. Even though most times he can distinctly feel the disks in his spine, twisted and turning as he moves. Each time he stretches and feels his back pop, was a flinch he can’t rub off. 

Each time one of his friends gets angered by him, when he’s taken a step too far, they’ll jab him with an insult. They’ll ridicule them about his death, but each hurtful word was followed by an apology. Since each time they take his mind back to the hanger, his expression falls blank.

He doesn’t know how to respond anymore. Was he to laugh when his heart felt heavy? Brush it off and pretend it was a joke? He can’t anymore. When he lies like that, the pitiful tears come back. Because it wasn’t okay, he can’t be picked on for something like that. It wasn’t fair.

A strangled sob fell from his lips as he lifted his arms over his face. He feels so utterly useless.

Useless. Many would think he feels more so worthless than anything else. Not that it wasn’t true, but worthless meant no one cared for him. No one thought of him each passing day and hoped he was doing well. That wasn’t true. Even though to himself, he was worthless. Saying the word out loud in front of his friends would have heads turn abruptly.

They would flock him and remind him that he wasn’t worthless, that he meant the world to them, as much as they did everyone else. So he replaced the word with useless. He feels useless. 

Not much of a difference, but to him there was. He was no good for anything. He didn’t serve a grand purpose. When he mutters his little truth to them, they find it hard to respond. How do you tell someone who has done nothing but terrorize people, that they are useful?

The thought stung his eyes, again he whines to stifled another sob. Before the game, he wasn’t a good person. That was the truth, and he wasn’t throwing a pity party. He was cold, manipulative, Stone-faced liar. Who looked out for himself alone. Dice was a criminal group, yes, but he didn’t look out for them.

They stole things that didn’t belong to them. They robbed innocent people without reason. They hurt others for the hell of it, and for what? 

Just to feel a high.

He was the lowest of low. Though he never stooped down to murder. Not because he believed it was immoral, but because he knew how much of a mess murder creates. He told others to do it, he told them how to do it, even how to hide the body and traces of death.

He was such a bad person. 

He was never honest. Never true. He put up walls until he couldn’t look back at his old self anymore. He didn’t know who he was. 

Kokichi forced himself on his side, so the weight of his chest wouldn’t crush him. He suffers from severe guilt, shame, regret, and most of all he suffers from a great burden of self-hatred. 

He remembered too well how staring at blood and murdered victims hadn’t made him faulter. He has it stained into his mind how well he was used to violence. How much he didn’t mind watching two angered individuals beat one another till one falls limp. He remembers laughing as people around him screamed Bloody Mary.

He was a god-awful person. He was a villain everyone feared would never come to life. He was the kind of villain who had no redeeming quality. He was born the way he was, and even if he did undergo grave cruelty, it only aided in his success to be the most vicious boy who walked the underground worlds.

He was the son of the devil himself, or so people said. He was the second coming of Lucifer that was thought to be banished from earth. That was his old favorite rumor.

Despite his evil heart, there was something painstakingly innocent about him, even back then. Before he was captured by betraying allies. 

He would never belittle a child. It was an odd quality, for someone who encouraged rape and violence. Seeing a pure child enter his presence was serene. He remembers one night where a couple was murdered before their four year old daughter. The child sat by their corpses, playing with her mother’s hair as if they were just sleeping.

Kokichi had watched for too long. Staring at the child who lost everything. The only givers the child would ever have. He remembered walking over to that girl, who by then curled up against her passed on father. He picked her up, and carried her six blocks away to the only orphanages around. The crammed kind that had horrid conditions.

He helped because he saw the ghost of himself in her. A dying ember, a fading spirit of purity, he used to be like that. Though he doesn’t remember his childhood too well. It must have been blocked out by the mind, trying to save him more nightmares that he doesn't need to have. 

Kokichi brought his knees to his chest, squeezing as hard as he could to punish himself for his past deeds. He lied. He lied about never having a redeeming quality. He always wished he never had one. But he was all too well aware of how his heart ached in sight of innocence.

On mild levels, it was jealousy. On higher levels, it was the raw humiliation he found in himself. Back then it was all he ever knew, violence, blood, laughing, lying. He knew nothing else. So in a sense, he was innocent, because despite his age, he knew no better than any child never taught decent behavior.

After Dice was shot to death, and he was dragged away into a van to be drugged and undressed. He felt his soul lurch painfully. He wasn’t raped, he was changed into a new set of clothes, the type meant for hospitals. The tie gown, with the washed out teal color. 

Needles followed that, digging into his veins, wiping his mind from clear thinking. 

**Supreme Leader**. 

_Goddammit_.

That’s all he heard for hours without end. He’s a tyrant. He’s a dictator. He was dominating in all senses of the word. He had no heart, but that’s what he heard every day in the hospitals cells. 

Until he woke up, inside that game. And the whole world knows how that went. Every human being is aware of his failures, of his pain, and exploits it in their own ways. 

He’s useless now. After death he was slammed into reality, he was given a forsaken taste of kindness that burned his tongue. He choked on the heat of love, on the purity of it. He’s riddled in everything he shouldn’t be. Against his efforts, tears broke free and the sobs of unfiltered emotion ran uncontrolled.

He’s chained to his guilt. He’s imprisoned behind the bars of his past. Kokichi knows he isn’t like the way he was before the game, and he knew he changed. What weighs him down was the lack of forgiveness he craves. 

Ashamed of himself, he swallowed his cries and did his best to be quiet. He didn’t deserve the freedom to cry, he wasn’t allowed to wander a home without being detained. Yet he gets to anyway, and that fact alone hurt.

He sat up, with his trembling arms grabbing around a couch pillow for weak comfort. Burying his face into the minor safety, all to hide from the world. This world hated him anyway, so much so that it granted him a second chance to screw up. 

He fell silent at last. 

Curled up on the couch, only his shoulders shook with post-tear rage. His hands and feet were still so cold. The way he should be, and they way he should stay.

“...It’d be better if I just died.” He muttered numbly to the air around him. “No one… wants me, I only… ruin things.” He rubbed his eyes, his bottom lip wobbling with stress and anxiety. 

The room he sat in was tinted with grey. It was all coated in dimness. The lights weren’t on, and the sun was rising. Only few light leaks wormed their way in, fading subtly into the dark air. It was cloudy, not an ounce of powering light graced his environment. 

He was stuck staring ahead of him. His head lifted enough where only his chin touch the pillowed he clenched tightly. His face was pale. His eyes now blown open in mock terror. His lips empty from color, and small tremors skidded across his chest. He was so, so gone. 

Only jolting back to feel his numb body spike in sudden touch. Gentle, slow fingers had brushed against his cheek. After he flinched so visibly, they left. Kokichi caught a breath running too shallow. Holding it captive behind his thin lips. His nervous eyes darted beside him, where he was struck by a strong gaze.

“Shuichi…!” He gasped weakly, feeling sudden heat burn his neck. The panic meter in his body suddenly spiked and shot upward without reason. Having a presence he hadn’t expected didn’t take too kindly on his heart. “You— You scared me…” he swallowed dryly, digging his fingers into the pillow in his arms. 

His visitor didn’t move. Still hovering his gaze over his expression. 

It softened, his amber eyes shining in former worry. “...You’re not alright…” he said quietly. Reaching out his hand again to caress his wet cheek. Just the touch of his hand set chills of relieve through his stiff muscles. “...How long had you let your thoughts rule you over?” 

Shuichi was too empathetic. He could always sense the trouble of others, and the fact that Kokichi was close to him all the time, his odds of being ignored decrease with every moment they have. 

Kokichi bit his lip. Again the waves of shame washed through him. Honesty for the longest time meant weakness. Honesty meant submissiveness. He’d never dominate if he was true to himself and others. His throat felt swollen, so his answer felt stangled. “...Since—Since last night.” He coughed, rubbing his throat, not realizing how sore it was. 

Shuichi eyed him for a moment more, before dropping his hand to capture Kokichi’s. “You were outside last night.” He said effortlessly, as if he watched him throughout the whole duration of mindlessness.

“How’d…” Kokichi glanced at the back door, trying to ignore the subtle hands of Shuichi trying to warm his freezing fingers up. “...you know?” 

The former detective sighed, breathing through his nose as he let go of Kokichi’s hands. He turned to pull out a blanket from under the coffee table. They kept them there since both got cold easily. Shuichi threw the blanket around his shoulders, pulling the ends tight together so Kokichi was fully submerged in warmth.

“...there’s a small puddle near the back door.” He said, moving to sit next to him. “...you’re hands are cold, and your clothes are slightly damp.” Shuichi brought his warm palms to press against his cheeks. “...and the temperature dropped like someone left a window or door open for too long.”

His thumbs rubbed his cold skin comfortingly. Kokichi kept his eyes away from his as Shuichi muttered fact after fact. “...And the inside side of the window on the door has an extra layer of frost on it. And the footprints that haven’t been snowed on enough—” 

“I get it…” Kokichi muttered, wincing as another pang of guilt struck his chest. “I shouldn’t... ask a detective why they know things...” 

Shuichi sighed, determined to make Kokichi feel better. He slid an arm around his rather small body, and hugged him close. “...Smart choice.” He muttered, “so could you tell me why…” 

Kokichi bowed his head forward, sinking into the touch. Already knowing what he was asking. “...Nightmare.” He uttered, hardly gracing the word with any volume. “...just, a bad, bad nightmare.” 

Shuichi kissed his temple. Running his gentle hands up and down his back. Hoping to smooth the ache that no doubt still lingered inside him. “...There’s more to it.” Shuichi said, sensing his hesitation. “...not just a bad nightmare. What else?”

The smaller shifted, turning so he sat in Shuichi’s lap. With his ear against his chest, and his cold feet were still tucked softly under the blanket. “...just, useless.” He whispered, letting a shaking breathe leave his numb lips. “...I feel… so, useless. So-... beside myself.” 

Kokichi had long since neglected the pillow, now wrapping his still-shaking arms around Shuichi’s torso. “...I can’t ...forget the monster I was. I can’t unsee all the thing I did…” his chest seared painfully with shame. “I—I can’t stop hearing their voices… I can’t… I can’t stop feeling the needle and the—the cold press hurting me!” It was so pitiful how he raised his voice in desperation.

Desperation of what? To heal? To be comforted? He’s not sure.

“I wish…” he breathed, squeezing his eyes shut as he spoke stiffly. “...I wish I truly was dead. I wish-... I wish you let me go and suffer the way I deserve…” 

Shuichi’s body went rigid. Kokichi felt his hands paused, and his gentle breath pause. Kokichi felt those fingers trial upward, one hand resting on the nape of his neck, the other curved around his shoulder. Those harsh, sharp eyes bore into Kokichi’s watery lavender ones.

“...You don’t deserve to suffer.” He said solemnly. “If anything, if you wish to punish yourself for acting the way you knew best, then this…” The hand around his shoulder rested against his chest. “...this pain, should be enough for your past self to learn. That all that cruelty was uncalled for…” 

His eyes softened, his lips once again against the crown of his head. “...but you aren’t him anymore.” Shuichi whispered. “...You are the stronger version.” 

Kokichi grimaced. “...The stronger version who… who cries in memory of pain? Who can’t stand on my own without you to hold my hand through it?” 

Shuichi bore a small smile. “...Yes. Do you remember? You told me something just after the game. When I was debating my worth… you said that strength was doing what was hardest. Strength was not demonstrating to others that you have the upper hand.” 

Ah, his own words being thrown back at him. Kokichi supposed he was asking for it. Shuichi pulled him closer, cradling his aching mind against his warm and welcoming spirit. Continuing on with his soft-spoken words.

“...What's hardest here, is you baring your true feelings before me. This is difficult, and no person who is ‘strong’ can naturally handle honesty. And you're carrying the weight of it all. Remember? You said the same thing to me… you’re not weak for doing something that’s hard. Weak is taking the shortcut and putting up a wall.”

He ran tender hands through Kokichi’s hair, holding him so sweetly. “...You’re the strongest person I know. Not even Kaito could come right out and tell me how he feels. Not Kaede. Not Maki. They all still fake it, that everything is fine and will get better. What they don’t know is that healing hurts, and they’re preventing pain from healing the wounds.” 

Kokichi whined. “Stop stealing my words! I know already…” but Shuichi continued. 

“...You wanted someone to tell you, right?” He asked, not expecting an answer. “...Sometimes it’s nice to be the one who gets help. To be comforted, instead of the comforter. That’s all you wanted, isn’t it? To step down from the spotlight and sit in the audience so you can have someone else lift your spirits?” 

Kokichi hates how he’s not wrong. How the lump in his throat won’t go away. How Shuichi pushed all the right buttons. “...so cruel.” He muttered, with tears rolling back to waste themselves over more guilt. “...you’re just so cruel to me.” 

He tightened his grip around Shuichi, struggling to keep his trembling tears a silent cry. But the more Shuichi held him closer, rubbing his back and just listening to the ugly sound of his throat closing and opening on demand of a sob. The more it coaxed the loud involuntary cries withering up past his lips. 

His lies come back, all the more heavily, more powerfully. And those sick words dripping like gross mucus from a rubbed at nose. He remembers the adults in his young mind. He sees them every other night that the metal isn’t pulverizing his body. Every darkened hour that the flesh he has isn’t being bashed like meat in a factory, are the words that he adopted as his fault.

_How was he supposed to say it?_

_“Mom I cut myself sometimes, and pain feels good, and it feels like my lungs shriveled up to a tiny popped ballon. Please take me to a therapist.”_

_No he couldn’t say, instead he uttered through a hushed and choked voice, that hardly was squeezing by the lump in his throat; “…Mom, I feel terrible right now, could I see someone…?”_

_Except the eyes of panic and rushed actions meets his hurt gaze. “You’re issues are nothing compared to- [Name redacted] -It can wait.”_

_Can it? Kokichi thinks it can’t. The bubbles in his chest condensed too much and the minute he was out of sight he collapsed into a heap of pain. Blaming himself. He didn’t speak the whole truth, so he didn’t get what he wanted. His mother was the one he used to turn to, now when hands are raised by either, His body dares to flinch,_

_“They bullied me.”_

_“No they hadn’t.”_

_“They kicked me under the table.”_

_“That’s what kids do.”_

_“They slammed by book closed on my fingers, they won’t stop.”_

_“Harmless acts.”_

_“It hurt me, mom.”_

_Even still, ache after ache, he’s destined to have a dreadful downfall. He’s destined to end up at the bottom of a pit, with his mind and body rid of it’s worth. Only to have the reality of you-never-had-worth hit too hard. Hard enough to wipe a breath from his lips, turn them blue, and make him wish that all those years ago, death should have occurred. By his own stained bloody hands, that he never had the guts to dirty._

_Coward, coward. Lonely, lonely coward. Meant to rot and fester under a sheet of pity and self loathing. The loathing that’ll peel his skin back with age and force his own eyes to watch the maggots of his lies squirm into it’s flesh._

_“They blame me for bullying others.”_

_“Tell your teacher.”_

_“I-I did.”_

_“So it’s solved.”_

_“It-It isn’t. They believed the others, I was sent to the principal…”_

_“The hells wrong with you then? You didn’t suffer from being tormented. Get over yourself.”_

_How is he to responded to that? He’s too stupid, too worthless. He can’t take a hint, and if it’s pain he responds to, then too many people pick up on that. They are too eager to feel the high of delivering a blow to someone’s crumbling body, to feel a fist crack against bone. What’s so satisfying about feeling fragile fibers break beneath your fingertips?_

_Everything._

_“Your friend was beaten up today.”_

_“...He was?”_

_“Yes, and he died.”_

_“...oh.”_

_“You know what that is?”_

_“...”_

_“Kokichi, you know what it is?”_

_“...”_

_“That’s real bullying.”_

It hurt too much to remember, all his redeeming qualities. He sobbed because he’s tired of feeling so hated. So fake. He wishes to be real and yet all he sees, when his mind isn’t replying his pitiful life over and over again, is a laughing girl, claiming to have their lives trapped in fiction. Though he died before then, he still sees it.

“...Shh, it’s okay…” he hears him whisper, holding him so close that it hurt. But in a way he liked. It was a protective, safe hold. One he can’t get over, that it was him they cared for, by god, it was actually him who was being loved.

They spent all morning like that. With Shuichi pulling out the forsaken emotion of anger, and sorrow from Kokichi who writhed under the idea of bearing one more ounce of his shattered innocence. 

Eventually, the snow outside stopped. And the sun came out to pour in through the windows, that awaited the warmth to melt it’s frost away. With the coming of the new rays, was a weak little smile whittling its way onto Kokichi’s lips. He’s still far from okay, but the idea of Shuichi here with him, entertaining his monster beneath his skin was somewhat comforting.

So the hour passed just like that. Soon Shuichi convinced him that he should eat something. The following bits of his day were chased by the mouth watering smell of breakfast. Where he sat at the table beside Shuichi who tipped forkfuls of warm filling food into his mouth, all to keep the sweet smile on his lips from fading.

“...Shuichi.” Kokichi said, after swallowing a piece of rice and potatoes. “I...do adore you, you know? I feel relieved to be with you…” he spoke softly, embarrassed from the honesty. Shuichi had paused, listening to him with care. “...to have a second chance, although it’s… super hard and painful.” 

“...Me too.” He said back, placing down the fork next to the mostly finished plate of food. “...I’d be gone, for good, without you.” He smiled, standing up to take Kokichi’s hand and bring him to his feet. “...I’m in love with the idea of you.” He kissed his cheek, taking in his gentle smell of vanilla and tasting the slight salty residue of tears.

Kokichi hugged him as Shuichi slid his caring hands around his waist. “...The after death of my life was worth it all…” he let his head rest on Kokichi’s shoulder, who hadn’t minded in the least. “...Since we’re much more alive then we were before. More grateful, more honest with ourselves.”

Kokichi hummed, feeling the exhaustion sleep lacking nights, and tearful mornings, brought him. “...Yes, I know.” He whispered back. “I find myself more enamored by you… I feel as though safety is with you. Though that’s more my lonely soul’s desperation.” He sighed, disappointed in himself.

“Then let it be desperate.” Shuichi said, then without much notice, he kissed him. Gently ensuring his lips and nursing them like wounded emotions wobbling over hurt feelings. The feeling struck a warmth in his chest, spinning his head high with affection and protection. He’d never want to leave.

“...I love you.” He muttered softly, gazing at Shuichi through tired eyes. 

“That’s just too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence,” Shuichi whispered softly, “because I love you too.”

He melted, knowing that this story was far from ending, but nearing a close.

It won’t end at “I love you”. 

  
  


He knows it won’t.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [ Short disclaimer ] Hi: I might not update Little Whispers because honestly that was an attention seeking story cuz I felt so lonely at the time, and I am guilty of ever posting it. I did write the part two, but it’s been done in bad tastes. 
> 
> [ This story ] ‘rigid again’ was inspired by my thoughts of having felt guilt, over never feeling guilt or shame where I feel as though I should have. Not being good enough, being the one who lacks in talent, only now realizing I won’t be the aspiring writer I hoped to be Etc. I only write this in bc I wanna tell someone, or post it where others can see it just for the sake of getting it off my chest. 
> 
> Hope u are having a better day


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